EXHIBITION

THE LIMINAL AND THE LIMITLESS

August 21, 2015 - October 2, 2015

Featuring Artists

The Liminal and the Limitless features the work of Stephen Proski (KC), Samara Umbral (KC), Maya Martinez (BM) and Troyese Robinson (LA). The works of these four artists are steadfast in their shared flatness and sense of image making but vary in content, medium and intention. From this shared practice, the various directions of the work fluctuate within and without periods of liminality, being “of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase or condition”. The term, accredited by Victor Turner, discusses the in-flux qualities of social hierarchies and identities that produce outcomes for new institutions, definitions and fluid situations.

Many of the ways in which we classify ourselves is directly correlative to societal norms. But where do we, independent of the binaries we have learned, start and end? And how do we relate to others without this prescribed vocabulary? The Liminal and the Limitless seeks to take this concept outside of the anthropologic and into the aesthetic realm. The artists exhibited create a new space within this limitless-ness in their respective contemporary practice, following the central tenet of liminality:

“Lived experience transforms human beings—and the larger social circles in which they partake—cognitively, emotionally, and morally, and therefore significantly contributes to the transmission of ideas and formation of structures.”

Through such an intermediate state, Turner states this place as being the ‘realm of pure possibility’, one in which creates possibility in both practice and identity. With Postmodernism rearing its head in the late 20th century and liminality being coined shortly before, liminality has become the subject of many artists works but not the subject of many art theorists. Within present discourse of identity politics in the aesthetic realm, how can we look to liminality as a source of comfort in the limitless? Can we carve this space as an optimistic platform, or, are we subsumed by the current nihilist political arena? Can the role of the artist live between the two?

The Liminal and the Limitless presents the work of four artists navigating within aesthetic practice and identity politics. This exhibition does not serve as an all encompassing representation of this politic, but rather a careful selection that is indicative of a contemporary local and national arena. Furthermore, the exhibition of these artists does not represent a universality within their respective identity. With the opening of this exhibition falling the same week as the Orlando Pulse Nightclub terrorist attacks, 50/50 will be donating all tip proceeds to the LGBTQIA Latinx victims. 50/50 is a safe place and does not tolerate anti-LGBTQIA, race or gender violence, harassment or hate speech.